- Story by Lin Stranberg Photography by Lia Crowe
Elizabeth Cross is inspired by love, passion, art and the environment.
鈥淭his may sound cheesy, but I believe love is the ultimate thing in life,鈥� she says.
It鈥檚 quickly apparent that for Cross, a free-spirited and prolific painter, serious businesswoman and busy mother of three teenage girls, painting itself is a great love affair and grand passion.
Cross has been painting for 30 years, but she held back on exhibiting her work publicly until 2018. It has taken off like a rocket ever since, and eliminated her reluctance for good. She has produced probably 200 paintings for exhibit and sale, and has shown in both Vancouver and Seattle at Art Vancouver, Lillian Gallery and Lynn Hanson Gallery, among other venues. She has also participated in 鈥渓ive鈥� painting competitions throughout Vancouver. Her work is currently showing in Kitsilano at Stock Home Design and at Art Downtown, Vancouver鈥檚 newest outdoor art exhibition.
Her art is mainly abstract: she loves to paint flowers and faces in bold, bright acrylic colours that just explode off the canvases鈥攂right reds, pinks, yellows and greens, plus black and white for special high-contrast pieces. She makes her paintings more textural with gels, glitter, sparkles and, unusually, bits of used fabric from clothing.
鈥淚t adds quite a bit of interest and texture and also helps to save the material from going to landfill,鈥� she says.
Her deep feeling for sustainability and the environment is authentic鈥攊t鈥檚 part of her background as a bio-resource engineer and environmental specialist.
After earning her master鈥檚 degree in bio-resource engineering from UBC, she worked as an environmental advisor in Vancouver for corporations like Telus and YVR. Now she runs her own start-up, Moda Circolare, a consulting agency for new and existing brands of sustainable fashion. The way she sees it, it鈥檚 a natural offshoot of her environmental advisory.
鈥淭he issues are the same: social and environmental issues, governance and so on. The difference is that in the case of Telus, for example, the issue may have been electronic waste, while with fashion it鈥檚 about things like fabric waste or solvents.鈥�
As much as she helps people with her environmental expertise, her real ambition is to feel and communicate joy through the paintings she make and sells. Earning money through her paintings keeps the whole thing going.
鈥淚 love to paint big pieces and I can go a little crazy with paint,鈥� she says.
She always paints outside, often under a big patio umbrella in the rain: 鈥淭he cold and rain don鈥檛 bother me, but some days my hands feel like they鈥檙e freezing.鈥�
She has no set plan when she begins a canvas. She never paints from nature, models or photographs.
鈥淚 paint it all from my head,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 paint whatever I feel that day, in the colours I feel like using. If I鈥檓 in a yellow mood, I鈥檒l paint in that colour that day.鈥�
She spends an average of four to eight hours on a painting, frequently returning to them.
鈥淪ometimes they鈥檙e hard to leave alone鈥擨鈥檓 always trying to improve them.鈥�
She describes herself as a 鈥渉opeless, dreamy, ridiculously loving鈥� romantic, and the titles of many of her paintings are overt references to her belief in the appeal of romantic love. 鈥淢y Lover鈥檚 Last Kiss,鈥� 鈥淚 Am So Attracted to You,鈥� 鈥淔alling in Love For the First Time鈥� and 鈥淟ove Shines Brighter When You Are Near鈥� are typical titles for both the flowers and faces she likes to paint. The colours all speak of passion. But some of the flowers have a darker aspect and some faces, while abstract, have a feeling of sadness about them that may speak to the mysteries and potential heartaches of love as well.
There are a pair of dress shoes on her website (elizabethcross.ca) that she has painted in orange, purple, blue and green that 鈥渞epresent the treadmill of daily life, the running out of time and that life is so very precious.鈥�
But this romantic can be a sentimentalist too. As both a scientist and an artist, she lives in a left brain/right brain duality that is both charismatic and rare.
When she was completing her first degree (in agriculture) at UBC, she took some art courses and picked up the basics of drawing, mixed media, acrylic and oil painting. During that period, she had the pleasure of meeting Zbigniew Kupczynski, a Polish-Canadian abstract expressionist, at a South Granville art store. Kupczynski鈥檚 wildly colourful portraits of children and celebrities made a lasting impression of her. As a young student, she could only afford his prints and bought two of them. Kupczynski, in turn, was impressed that a student was buying his work.
鈥淚 loved the vibrant colours he used and the expression of his work. I loved how he geometrically broke down the faces,鈥� she said.
She took metalwork courses at Van Tech while studying for her master鈥檚 degree at UBC, and again at BCIT more than 10 years later.
鈥淲elding鈥檚 very therapeutic. I used to make tables, beds, candleholders and mirrors and sell them at craft fairs,鈥� she says, adding that her teenage daughters learned to weld in high school.
Cross, originally from Ontario, travelled extensively as a child. Her father, a geologist, had a career that took him all over the globe, and he moved his family wherever he went. When Elizabeth was 12, they came back to Canada and settled in Vancouver, where she鈥檚 lived ever since.
She recently moved from the modern house she and her husband built in Dunbar into 鈥渁 big old yellow house鈥� in Kerrisdale. It鈥檚 a family home, full of love and artwork. One of her daughters鈥� larger-than life metal sculptures welcomes you at the door, making it clear that it鈥檚 occupied by a very creative family.
Story courtesy of , a Black Press Media publication
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